A Long Weekend in Santa Margarita
by Taliahah
Summary: Annie is assigned to a shared mission in the tiny Basque-speaking municipality of Santa Margarita on the border between Spain and France. The once-walled city is known for three things - a suspiciously lucrative new olive oil industry, loose banking regulations, and the most lenient marriage requirements in all of Europe. An Eyal/Annie oasis in a very Auggiecentric universe.
1. Unusual and Thus Worthy of Note

"Joan's looking for you," Auggie said, accepting the coffee Annie had brought him. Nothing like the smell of Jo Malone Grapefruit and Starbucks to wake up the morning.

"Really? Do you know what it's about?"

"Think she's got an assignment for you. Watch yourself, Walker."

Annie stopped, lowered her voice. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Don't know. But she seemed – kind of _happy_. Unusual and thus, worthy of notice. Good luck."

"Thanks," Annie said, going on toward Joan's office. "Happy" was not a word she used mentally in connection with Joan, ever. Could Auggie be misinterpreting something closer to sadistic glee? Given many of her assignments, which had gone very wrong without any prior warning, she couldn't imagine that Joan would _happily_ send her into one that was known beforehand to be particularly dangerous. _Well, I won't know until I know_, she thought, and knocked on the door.

"Come in, we're just finishing," Joan called out, and yes, there was a slightly different tone to her voice. Annie wasn't sure she would qualify it as "happy", but Joan did look and feel contentedly engaged with whatever was at hand – which of course could be completely unrelated to Annie herself. _The Agency does not revolve around you_, she told herself.

"Auggie said you were looking for me?"

"Yes. Your file says you are "comfortable" in Basque? What does that mean, exactly?"

"Wel, it's an unusual language, I won't swear to knowing perfect grammar, but I have the basic vocabulary and pronunciation – I can speak to shopkeepers and read information in it with reasonable accuracy."

"That should be sufficient. Actually, it's a bonus – I'd consider you for this assignment regardless. As you know, there is an active Basque separatist movement, some elements of which have not scrupled to resort to terrorism in the past couple of decades. We suspect that there is some crossover in weapons and finances with some of our more prominent enemies, and it seems to be focusing on a small principality called Santa Margarita near the border between Spain and France. Have you heard of it?"

"Isn't that the one that used to be a walled city – the "country" is basically the town and a few high meadows in the mountains?"

"Exactly. Anyway, I need you to go there, install a camera, and check out an olive processing facility that seems to be thriving a little too well in this current world economy. We think it is a front for other activities …" Joan clicked through a few images which showed a beautiful state-of-the-art facility. "There's not _that _much olive oil to be had in Santa Margarita. Most of the economy is based on only two industries, the main one being banking, as an 'in-the-mountains' offshore haven. It's reached only by rack railway and a few donkey and hiking paths, with a couple of short roads that stay within the borders of the principality."

"So what do I do? Am I a foodie writer? Or scouting luxury olive oil suppliers for Whole Foods?"

"No, you'll check it out as a sightseer and hiker."

"I'm on my own for this one, then?"

"No, you'll have a partner. This is a simple reconnoiter operation we're sharing with Mossad. Any guesses on who that partner might be?"

Annie smiled her trademark crooked smile. "Eyal Lavin."

"Exactly. Apparently Mossad is short on Basque speakers. Did you ever mention that to him? That you spoke Basque?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Someone must have been checking out your file, then."

"He would have access to my file here?"

"Certainly not. But as soon as you showed up on their radar, they would have immediately assembled their own. They're nothing if not thorough. Oh, speaking of thoroughness, Annie, as I mentioned, Santa Margarita is known for only two industries – banking and for some of the loosest marriage requirements in Western Europe, ideal for those burdened with slightly incomplete divorces or insufficiently dead ex-spouses. We don't want you to attract any financial attention, so that leaves the other option."

"Joan, that's – I can't pretend to marry Eyal Lavin!" Joan looked at her, surprised by her outburst. Annie was surprised herself – she'd blurted it out without thinking. Why had she?

"Annie, _you_ won't be marrying anyone. There's a three-day mandated waiting period, which with your arrival day and some luck, should be more than enough time to complete your mission without getting anywhere near an altar or, more likely, mayor's office. If worst comes to worst, it will just be between your cover identities. And if you want to be really sure that there are no possible legal ramifications, you can just skip the consummation portion of the events." She thinks we've already slept together, Annie realized. Or she did till now. "And despite their embrace of quick-marriage tourism, the area is actually very conservative. I don't think it ever recovered from the Moorish Occupation. No one will expect you to be sharing a room prior to the grand event, so you should be able to keep a certain safe distance. If you want to."

"Of course. I mean, of course, I realize that, I know it wouldn't be _legal_…"

"Annie, do you have some issue I don't know about with Eyal? I thought all things considered, you'd worked well together."

"No. Yes, I mean no issue, we worked well together, it's just, well, he's pretty intense at close quarters and you think he won't try to take advantage of this situation? Just the bad jokes alone are going to be hard to take. "

Joan smiled and held up the file. "While I'd like to have you on the scene with your language skills, this can easily go to someone else, Annie. I have a wide range of agents I could use on this – Santa Margarita legalized gay marriage five years ago. Admittedly, Eyal might be disappointed if an Andrew showed up rather than an Annie, but he's a seasoned pro, he'd deal with it. "

Annie sighed and took the file. However amusing the thought was of Eyal playing gay for the good of the cause was, she had no reason at all not to go and could not even follow her own line of emotional reasoning that had led to her protest. "I'll do it."

"Good. We have you on a flight out tomorrow morning."

Passing Auggie, Annie felt a spirit of mischief take control of her. "Well, I got the details of my new assignment. Are you going to be my handler?"

"Joan hasn't said, but I expect so. Where are you going?"

"Santa Margarita."

"That's off the usual grid. Understand they have good cheese and loose banking regulations."

"And loose marriage requirements – which is fortunate, because otherwise, where else could I marry Eyal Lavin so quickly? Catch you later. Gotta go get some new towels monogrammed."

"Marry Eyal…" Auggie pulled away his headphones and slid back from his desk, about to leap up in pursuit if only that would work. "Annie, get back here. What do you mean? Annie!"

It wasn't Annie who answered him, but Joan. "Relax, Auggie. If you do your job and guide them through fast enough, it won't come to that. There's a three-day waiting period. "

"So the CIA has finally introduced a _real _productivity incentive program for me."

"Something like that. Materials file by your left elbow. "

"Thank you, Ma'am."

_Author Note: Hope you enjoy this so far. This is part of a constellation of stories which all relate somewhat to each other - We'll Always Have Paperclips, Mermaid Beach, and two or three others to come. Please review! Reviews are the cherries on my sundae and much appreciated!_


	2. Terms of Endearment

"Darling!" His lips were on her mouth before she had even really registered it was Eyal reaching for her, and she hated herself that he had managed to emerge from nowhere, a reversal of his classic disappearances at parting. Well, she was not going to do him the honor of responding to this much, _much_ too passionate and for-real kiss. Not at all, or at least not much; this hot welcoming kiss was completely within their cover and exactly what she had been afraid of when Joan gave her this assignment; she couldn't completely reject it in public. She was determined she would not really respond to such brazenness, but she could not look like she was not responding, either, and, damn him, he was obviously not going to let her go until she did, no matter what. She heard her roll-on bag fall over behind her, the extended handle slapping the marble floor of the train station, and he still didn't detach.

Well, there were worse things in life than really kissing Eyal Lavin if that was the only thing that was going to let them leave the train station. With a deep sigh that worked in all contexts, she gave in, sliding her hands up his chest, reaching up to toy with his right earlobe, pressing her body against his while his hands roved against her back and settled on her ass, pressing her firmly against him and giving her quite the tactile preview of what a wedding night just might entail with Eyal. Satisfied with scandalizing her for the moment, he released her fairly quickly after that, cautiously managing to pin one of her arms behind her under the pretence of putting his arm around her back and taking her other free hand in his and kissing it, just in case she had a slap in mind.

"Lost your confidence? Not sure that kiss wasn't so good that I won't take a swing?" she said sotto voce.

"Not at all," he said, releasing her under the pretext of grabbing her bag back off the floor. "So glad to see you again, darling."

"Can we lose the "darling", darling?" she hissed. " I feel like I'm in a bad British movie."

"Sorry," he whispered back to her. "Not sure what to call you. Don't want to wear out neshema – I'll save that for later, when we do all this again for real."

"In your dreams!"

"Every night."

"Yeah right."

"Sounding a little irritable, mon petit chou. Maybe we _are _rushing too fast into marriage."

"Sorry. "My little cabbage" won't work for me, either."

"Why not? It's a classic French term of endearment."

"It's a round green vegetable."

"Perhaps another color? Mon petite melone? Or melones?"

"No to the melons, fruits, all vegetables."

"Whatever you wish, my heart."

"Now that's really unfair."

"How? What's your objection to "My heart?"

"I can't think of one offhand. That's what's unfair."

"Excellent. And as for me, that leaves "My love" free for _your _use. I feel your eyes rolling, but it is much simpler," he said, his voice dropping, "than counting on us reliably using our new names in every instance. Trust me on this."

"Very-well-my-love," she answered, as mechanically as she could.

"Try as you might, still music to my ears."

Annie looked at him, sighing. She had never seen him look so genuinely happy. He was incorrigible, and at the moment, irritatingly close to adorable, an adjective not usually used for Mossad agents. Right up there with "cuddly".


	3. The Quest for the Ring

They took a rental car to the town at the base of the mountain where Santa Margarita ruled over the heights, and boarded the old-fashioned geared train that went up the mountain at a steep angle. The train car was filled with smoochy couples but Annie warded Eyal off with a look. He restricted himself to holding her hand, occasionally stroking her palm with his thumb. They arrived in Santa Margarita and got their fake passports ceremonially stamped by a serious-faced customs officer dressed in a uniform straight out of the fourteenth century.

"Think we can find you some striped hose like that at the souvenir shop?"

"Do you want me to wear it for the wedding?"

"Well, we haven't discussed a theme yet. Striped stockings could work."

"Which brings up another question - do you need a dress for the wedding?"

"No, I brought a little white lace one I had at home. "

"I _knew_ you're a virgin."

"Ey – my love, that is an old fashioned concept and these days it's just the usual color choice for a wedding dress."

"You've made it very clear that this is not _your_ fantasy wedding, so I take that to mean it's mine – and in my fantasy, you're a virgin. And since it _is_ my fantasy, my extensive genealogical researches have also uncovered that you have a female Jewish ancestor a few centuries back, and, also, that you are committed to having five children."

"E, My love, I am not Jewish, I am not a virgin," – here he loudly and theatrically hushed her – "And I am not having five children, not in your fantasy or anywhere else."

"Well, that is a pity, because Israel needs my seed."

"'Israel needs your _seed_'?"

"We're still a small, young nation. Laugh all you want, but I know I'm an exceptionally healthy specimen and it's my duty to abundantly reproduce. It's good we're getting all this out of the way now, on this fantasy wedding, because it will make our real one later go much more smoothly. Actually, we do have to make a purchase. I was issued a ring to use on this little venture – obviously, gold, diamonds, jewelry, plenty of contacts for that in my organization so it ended up the obligation of the groom's side – but unfortunately, I forgot to pack it. I'm sure they can fix us up here." He guided her up several steps into a small jewelry shop obviously geared toward the local wedding industry. Annie shook her head. Had he really forgotten the officially-issued ring, or did he just want to supply her with one himself? She wondered how far he'd go on this 'fantasy' element and decided to test the limits.

"See anything you like?" he asked.

"Oh, that one's nice," she said, pointing to a large square cut solitaire diamond. He stood behind her and briefly nuzzled her neck as the jeweler looked a bit disgusted, not at their public display of affection but at their taste. "Cubic zirconia," Eyal whispered in her ear, flicking his tongue over her earlobe and biting at the little stud earring she was wearing while the jeweler got the ring out from the display cabinet behind the counter.

Well, that backfired and now she had a slightly wet ear. "Are you sure? You haven't even looked at it up close."

"Positive."

"This is a very _economical_ choice," the jeweler sniffed, bringing out the ring. "It is cubic zirconia."

"Actually, my beloved here, he forgot the real ring back home, we're just looking for a stand-in for the ceremony. The cubic zirconia will be fine, just fine." He actually lightly kicked the back of her heel. She suppressed the yelp, and the fear he might have scuffed her shoe, but then realized he was right – she was blowing their cover. What hurry-up bride-to-be in her right mind accompanied by an apparently willing groom in a jewelry shop would ever go for the zirconia as a diamond substitute, even for a split second?

"How about that one there, third over, second from the bottom?" Eyal suggested. Her eyes followed to the spot on the pale rose velvet tray. Nestled there was a slightly more old-fashioned ring, a little broader in the band which had a light tracery on it, with a small bright diamond in a setting that looked like two small leaves curving around it, more of an engagement ring than a wedding band, but it would do. It was charming and though she glanced around quickly at the other choices, it was easily the ring she liked best in the shop.

"That one is nice," she admitted, not understanding why it bothered her that he had spotted the ideal choice for her so easily. The jeweler pulled out the tray, satisfied. "This is a vintage piece, very good." Annie slipped it onto her ring finger. It fit perfectly. She tried it out at different angles and Eyal took her hand and gazed at it approvingly before kissing her fingers. She retrieved her hand as swiftly as was reasonable and removed the ring and handed it back to the jeweler. " My heart," Eyal said to her, "take yourself over to that little café. I'll be along in a minute." He reached for the jeweler's loupe on the counter.

"All right, beloved." So she was to be protected from the financial negotiations about to commence; even though it was a fantasy ring for a fantasy wedding – which, with luck, would never even take place – she did feel a bit sidelined by the "groom" taking such control, but she found herself unable to work up a good head of steam about it. She settled herself at one of the sidewalk tables and watched the crowds around her. So far, this seemed like a typical well-to-do tourist-friendly village, more prosperous than most in Europe. One of the upscale gourmet tourist shops was getting a delivery from a three-wheeled small truck painted with the livery of the olive oil company they were there to investigate. She ordered a café au lait and watched them unload a few cases of what appeared to be the right weight and handled with the delicacy she'd expect for cases of olive oil in glass bottles. No obvious mystery there.

Eyal joined her, with a small package which he slid away inside his coat. He looked satisfied with whatever deal he had struck and sat down beside her, smiling affectionately, perfectly in cover.

"Does it come with a 30-day return policy?"

Eyal's brows darkened and his mouth tensed. "You Americans know how to suck the romance out of anything."

"I'm sorry!" It _was_ a little crass of her. Why did she feel such a constant need to distance herself from him? He must have felt the sincerity in her voice – or the harshness in his own - because he looked at her understandingly and said "Apology accepted," and took her hand. He noticed the truck, too. "Let's go check out the Big Variety of Local Gastronomic Products," he said, reading a line from a wooden sign in front of the shop.

"Yes, perhaps we can pick up some olive oil."

"Excellent idea. One of nature's most versatile substances. Fill a lamp, fry an egg, massage your fiance…."

"I was thinking more like a great base for salad dressing."

"Such innocence. It's charming. For a short while longer." His hand had dropped to her ass. Was swatting it – and him – away "bridely"? She took his hand and raised it up firmly to her waist.

"My love, we're in public."

"In _what_?" He feigned shock as if she had misspoken.

"In _pub_lic." They entered the small shop where a selection of local products was carefully curated on well-lit, spacious shelves. No clerk or delivery person was visible, but they did hear footsteps above. Annie read over the labeling on a bottle from the targeted olive oil company. It appeared to be a normal label for a bottle of olive oil. The shopkeeper came down the steps, panting a little, the delivery man behind him, and seemed surprised by their presence. The bell must not be working - and he looked a bit pale. Annie held up the bottle and asked "Can this be packed for international shipping?"

"Yes, yes, of course." The delivery man left and the shopkeeper seemed to calm down a bit. "If you buy a larger quantity, we can ship it home for you directly."

"Is this the best olive oil in Santa Margarita?"

"Yes, yes, the only one. Very small batches, very special. "

"Where is it from?"

"Just a short way outside the village. New facility, very nice for the local economy."

"Do they do food events or anything there?"

"No, no, not yet, nothing like that. Just process the oil there."

"Oh, too bad. I'll just take this bottle for now and maybe get some more packed up later before we go. We're here for a few days. We're getting married!" she said, trying it on for size, pulling Eyal to her side. He smiled appropriately and dug out some Euros. "I am so happy for you. You will like the oil."

Actually this 'he pays for everything' aspect was kind of fun. She threw in a decorative bottle opener and a couple of jars of local truffles in oil; Danielle would enjoy them.

"Good choice," Eyal said to her, softly, eyeing the truffles. "Excellent aphrodisiac."

"Not everything can possibly be an aphrodisiac, my love."

"All depends on one's state of mind, my heart."

"If one's mind is constantly searching for aphrodisiacs, one would have to wonder about one's state of body, with its excessive need for such, beloved."

"Enhancement not requirement, my heart."


	4. Sign on the Dotted Line

Author's Note: Short update this time but I wanted to post something at least. Hope you enjoy it!

Their next stop in Santa Margarita was the Registry Office, where a pair of couples were waiting in line ahead of them. One appeared to be an aging Russian prostitute making a desperate career move with an elderly man, the other a pair of young people who might not have reached the age of consent in their respective nation or nations. Eyal was holding Annie's hand; going up the steps she realized that she felt anxious, nicely in keeping with her cover but a surprise. As if detecting this, he gave her hand a slow gentle squeeze, smiled down at her and kissed her forehead.

Annie wondered how they looked to the passersby, seeing her beside this tall, strong man; the more romantic were probably sighing over what looked like a well-matched, good-looking couple in love. She found herself imagining what her sister Danielle would be doing at this moment if this marriage were real – she'd be there with her camera, capturing every possible moment and directing more; the girls would be in pretty little dresses and participating, maybe even Danielle's husband would be tuxed up and supporting his sister-in-law on her wedding day.

With luck the actual wedding portion would not occur, but if it did, in a way it would always be her "first" wedding. Now she felt really anxious – this seemed just plain wrong, as if she were robbing herself and her real future husband – whoever he might be – of that pure energy and moment. She was no physical virgin, but she was a virgin to the act and process of getting a marriage license, of the whole drama of getting married, and that was about to permanently end. And all this angst was just over going to the registrar to announce their intent, pay the fee, and schedule the ceremony! "Eyal," she said, and realized she'd blown his cover name, again. "Beloved," she amended, but then fell silent, what could she say? It was not a task she could ask him to do for both of them, they needed her and her signature. She could not run away from this without messing up the mission.

And it annoyed her that he seemed to be tracking her thoughts. "Remember why we chose to come to Santa Margarita," he said, softly, squeezing her hand again but not letting go; maybe he feared she would bolt.

"I am."

"After this, we'll have a nice dinner and a good bottle of wine," he said. "I like the look of that restaurant built on top of the old city wall. Should provide a good view." She felt he was humoring her, promising her a treat if she'd just be _good_ for a while longer. She bristled at that thought, but that irritated energy was better than the full-blown anxiousness she was feeling. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and stepped forward to the desk.


	5. The Truth About the Barbies

The restaurant on the top of the ancient city wall did offer the view Eyal had suspected; they could see for miles as the sun gilded the mountains and night shadowed the valleys. Eyal had changed into a dark shirt, skipping a tie, leaving the first couple of buttons undone. His last assignments must have put him out in the sun, because he was tan. Annie looked at him, a little perplexed. It seemed as if he had grown better-looking in the interval since she saw him last. With an odd feeling in her stomach, she wondered if he had just grown more pleasing to her instead, and that was potentially alarming. He looked up from the menu with an affectionate smile -perfectly in character, Annie reminded herself - and asked her what she was thinking of ordering.

He was rewarding her for being "good" at the registrar's office, keeping the conversation light, stripped of innuendo, and other than keeping her wineglass a bit aggressively full of the rich local red wine, she could find nothing to complain about. He let her have more than her fair share of the flan-like dessert and in all, behaved as a perfect gentleman. They returned to their hotel and their respective rooms without incident, and she tried to more precisely define her annoyance at that.

The next morning, they rose as scheduled and made their way downstairs, meeting in the breakfast room. But the rain was showing no sign of letting up; it had been pouring down since the middle of the night. It would be useless trudging through the muck, leaving a blatantly obvious trail, and undermining any "lovers going sightseeing" cover pretty thoroughly. Eyal poured her more coffee in the dark little breakfast nook where the proprietress had gotten up early to prepare them breakfast for their sunrise hike. More crucially, this meant that they would need all the time they had before the "wedding day" and there was no hope of evading that without looking suspicious.

Later, they could wander through the small shops – again, and linger over lunch, and dinner, but for now there was nothing to do but listen to the rain. Normally the sky would be lightening by now, but the cloud cover was intense. Annie checked her cell phone. Several weather services promised the same – rain until almost dark, then clearing. They should be able to make their "hike", albeit a bit muddy one, in the morning. She texted Auggie. "Any chance you can fix the weather?"

"Sorry. Angels crying over your impending nuptials. Me too."

"Ha ha very funny."

Eyal looked pensive but not discontent, the steam rising from his coffee as he watched the window spattered with raindrops.

"I'm too awake to go back to sleep."

"I know. Enjoy it, neshema. I'm a desert dweller – it's fascinating to me. In Israel, we've fought for every inch of arable land, capturing every drop of water. I like the sound."

"Me too." She shifted her chair slightly toward the window herself. His free hand dropped onto her shoulder. They had spent many hours together just waiting in safe houses; it was easy to be with him doing absolutely nothing – staring at rain together. It was strange since normally they were two such dynamic people, perpetually in motion, responding to situations and events instantly and in tandem. Was this what their "marriage" would be like if it happened in reality– this ability to fall into simple, quiet contentment with each other's company – until it was time to erupt in a blaze of action?

The shops were all still closed and they finally retreated upstairs to Annie's room, which was slightly larger and had a tiny table and two chairs. They shared their stock of reading material – both of them had brought spy and detective novels, the kind straight off the carousel at the airport, what anyone might be carrying - and chatted. "Joan was surprised that you knew I spoke Basque when you contacted her."

"Shouldn't be any surprise. It's in your file at both our agencies."

"Oh yeah, seriously? The Mossad has a file on me?"

"Anyone we might engage with. And of course, we're much more thorough than your CIA."

"Oh, I think they got me covered. It's eerie what they've included. I doubt there's anything Mossad found that the CIA hadn't dug up."

"Really? Does the phrase "Decapitated Barbies" mean anything to you?"

Annie couldn't help it. She knew she blanched at the words. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely." Annie was stunned. What was worse, Eyal was probably right. Auggie had access to her CIA file, and she couldn't believe he would not have mentioned the Barbie Incident if he'd ever read it. "Family so concerned they rushed you to a child psychologist, the report of whom ended up appended to your elementary school records, probably as a warning to your teachers."

"My _aunt_ rushed me to a child psychologist, my parents were on vacation." Why was she telling him this? She was probably just creating a corrected addendum to her Mossad file, signed "per Eyal Lavin, field interview, Santa Margarita…."

"Auntie must have been disturbed. Very impressive, twelve little heads hanging by their hair on a hand-braided grass belt, wasn't it?"

"You obviously know the story better than I do. I was six. I didn't even know what being a Cannibal Queen meant, I just thought the DVD cover was cool and I'd never seen a hip belt before. I think I thought it had something to do with Hannibal and the elephants crossing the Alps."

"For a six year old, you knew your history."

"I was an early reader."

"You probably are right, it probably isn't in your CIA file. That could have been a deal-breaker. A certain early propensity for violence, definite cultural insensitivity – not very PC, violence against other women, taking over cultural traditions not your own, perhaps even a whiff of neo-colonialism, not the right stuff for the CIA at all. Of course, Mossad would see it differently."

"Not this again…."

"From the Mossad point of view, I think the analysis would be that it clearly indicated you would be willing to do whatever was necessary to achieve your goal, make whatever sacrifices might be necessary, improvise with anything you had at hand, and perhaps even indicate a certain early flair for creating a cover story and disguise. All qualities which would indicate an able future agent."

"Thank you. I did put them all back together, you know. No permanent damage – I'd learned from the previous hair cutting incident. Admittedly, I wished I hadn't used Sharpies to give them their tribal tattoos, but I stole some of my mother's concealer for them and they looked all right."

"As I said, doing what is necessary and improvising with what's at hand. But you can't fool me, Annie Walker –I know the real reason you symbolically murdered your Barbies."

"Oh?"

"You wanted to keep their little high-heeled shoes all to yourself." Annie laughed. She watched Eyal smile, pleased his joke had hit home.


	6. Pre-Marital Relations

The Pre-Marital Counseling office was tucked away upstairs in the tiny antique hall which served as the mayor's office and meeting area for the village. A brass plaque announced that it had been built in 1575 and the décor had not been updated since then. A row of small mayoral oil portraits eventually turned into sepia-tone photographs , crisper black and whites, and finally well-lit color pictures, but that was about the only concession to modernity. It smelled musty from three and a half centuries of stored documents wafting up from the basement.

Their "counselor" was a woman, which pleased Annie. Eyal settled down in a wooden chair apparently left over from the Middle Ages, which did not quite fit his height . The woman had a prepared piece to say to them. "Many people may believe that Santa Margarita does not take marriage seriously, but this is absolutely not the case. We want all of our couples to be well-matched and to embark on many years of happily married life from their beginning in our beautiful Santa Margarita. So we have this little talk with all of our couples first, to discuss any concerns and to see if we can provide any help in assuring a smooth start to your married life. And we also give you a book of coupons."

"That's very kind of you. I do have a lot of concerns," Annie said.

The woman looked surprised, and involuntarily glanced at Eyal. He straightened up in his chair.

"Oh?" She was not used to this being anything much more than a money-making formality for the community. "And what are those, may I ask?"

"Well, first of all..."

"Yes?"

"We haven't slept together. I'm a virgin. And I'm just concerned that … well, I'm concerned how things will go that first time , because he's a bit volatile and he's not always that sensitive to my concerns and needs."

"That is completely untrue! There's no one on earth that's more concerned about your safety and well-being than I am!"

Annie shrank back from his vehement protest, glancing at the woman with a "See what I mean?" look.

The woman straightened her stack of coupon books. "It is wonderful in these modern times that you have waited, and I am sure you will not regret that at all. On your part, sir, it would be well if you can take things a little slowly on your first evening together… perhaps have some olive oil on hand … it is a local remedy for , well, facilitating intimacy..."

"Believe me, I have been taking things a little bit slowly! I am an expert at "taking things a little bit slowly" with her – if she's a virgin at all!" Annie cried out in horror. "Stop pretending. You may recall you very distinctly told me that you were _not_ one, and now you are retracting that."

"I only said that then because I didn't want you to think I was too young and unsophisticated to bother with. Because I really, really liked you."

"And I you, my heart." He cupped his hand against her cheek. The counselor looked immensely relieved.

"Well, if there is nothing else…"

Eyal jumped in. "I would not say that there is nothing else. Her spending habits threaten to break me. Look! Look at these shoes!" He grabbed her foot and raised it ceilingward. Annie tugged her dress back down. "Red soles. Christian Louboutins. She will wear nothing else. Six hundred euros a pair, and she must have them in all the colors. I like them well enough on her, and I can afford to provide well for her, but by the _dozen_?"

"You hold my shoes against me? What else can I console myself with? Every time – _every time_ we go out to dine, as soon as we enter the restaurant, he is checking out who is at every table. _Every _woman who comes anywhere near us, he is looking at her. He even always sits with his back to the wall so he can watch all the new ones arrive!"

"Trust is very important and it may come with time…"

"If my manly needs were being met with you, my attention might not be so easy to distract."

"That is a terrible thing to say! If you truly cared about me, that wouldn't be an issue!"

"Have you discussed children yet?" the woman asked, somewhat desperately trying to change the subject.

"That is another thing…. I…" They both said, in unison, "I want a big family."

"At least _five_," Annie added. Eyal looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"So you both want lots of children. How nice. That is a good place to start building your lives together. Now I am afraid our time is up," she said, decisively. "The Municipality and the Mayor's Office would like to thank you for choosing to celebrate your vows in Santa Margarita. Here is your coupon book and receipt for this counseling session. Show it at the official Town Hall gift shop and you will receive ten percent off on any purchase."

Annie tucked away the coupons.


	7. A Taste of Saint Agatha

After the mandatory counseling session, they returned to the slow circuit of shopping around the main square, killing time.

"Hm. Those look both oddly familiar and very tasty," Eyal commented, pointing at a tray in the patisserie window. Arrayed in rows were mounded forms topped with a cherry and glazed pale pink. Annie did a double-take; they looked exactly like breasts, and now he was already going into the shop. "Four of the St. Agatha's, please," he asked at the counter. "I assume you want your own pair? Or would that be redundant?"

"Make that just two," Annie informed the counter attendant. "Why are we – why are you buying those?"

"Necessary cultural experience. St. Agatha is very big around here – well, not very big, actually the opposite, but as you can see, extremely nicely shaped. Filled with marzipan and ricotta. Sure you don't want any?"

"I think I'll skip this little cultural exploration."

"Really? I thought it would be right in line with your cannibal queen ah … tendencies."

"Shut up on that, E-my love!"

"First you cut off their little heads, and then…"

"For here?" the counter attendant interrupted.

"That is so disgusting I can't even express it."

"No, I'll take them with me. They'll make a nice late snack."

They enjoyed another pleasant dinner, feasting on lamb; the sky had cleared and it looked good for their planned hike in the morning, listening to a guitarist in a small bar for a while after their dinner. Eyal seemed intent on amusing himself by gazing at her adoringly and she amused herself by ignoring him and brazenly flirting with the guitarist, whose flamenco-style playing reached new heights that night. The waitstaff were all male so Eyal did not have the chance to take revenge by charming a waitress.

She blew a kiss to the guitarist as they left and caught Eyal's eye. He smiled at her indulgently.

"Thirty-six more hours till we tie the knot. Get it out of your system if you must."

"That's a milder reaction than I'd expect." He feigned surprise.

"Why, Neshema? I know you were only flirting with him to torment me... so I am still the actual object of every glance, every half smile you aimed at him but knew would land on me. I know you only do it because you're still scared of commitment and the depth of our love. But with time, your need to amuse yourself that way will fade."

Annie concentrated on the cobblestones, some of which were still a little slick from the earlier rain. She laughed as if he were truly out of his mind and smiled, and hoped that would cover the unnerving sense that he was summing her feelings up all too well, possibly better than she could herself. He slid his hand around her waist to guide her over the cobbles, and they returned to their hotel and to their floor.

"Well, goodnight," he said to her, and swept her into his arms, as swift and deadly as his first kiss of her on this trip at the train station, his hand cupping one breast possessively and squeezing her nipple as if checking to see if it was made of cherry like those on the St. Agatha pastries, which were still in the small string-tied cardboard box he had dangling from one finger, probably long the worse for wear in the hours since they had been purchased. "No one would believe that so close to the wedding I would not at least make an attempt on your virtue at parting," he whispered in an interval where he let her gasp for breath. She tried to extricate herself but damn it, there were people entering the hallway. "Not until we're married!" she managed to blurt out appropriately as the others passed close by and she took the opportunity to firmly disentangle herself, slipping behind her door.

"You're leaving me to console myself with only my pastries?"

"Yes, indeed. Enjoy them. Goodnight!" She shut the door and put her body back against it. She heard him open the door to his own room next to hers and close it behind him. Annie congratulated herself on her escape – now if only she could understand why she was so determined _to_ escape.

She was just contemplating that when the moaning started. Followed by dialogue. "Ah, Agatha, you are…" - smacking sounds -" so much sweeter to me than my would-be bride…her nipples are _like_ cherries but yours _are _cherries… so fragrant… so tasty and sweet…"

Annie went into the bathroom and grabbed the convenient plunger waiting for duty beside the toilet bowl, bringing it back and banging the handle against the wall.

"Hey, keep it down over there!" There was silence. Annie sat on the bed, clutching the plunger. What was especially maddening was that her own breasts were apparently aroused by proxy, and she couldn't quite vanquish the image and the idea of him doing to her what he was pretending to do to those pastries. Which, of course, even more maddeningly, was doubtless exactly his intention. The silence endured just long enough for her to be satisfied his little game was over.

Then she hard "Oh_, Agatha_!" quite clearly. That was it. She left her room and pounded on his door.

"Yes?" he answered, shirtless and in boxes, his expression all innocence.

"My _love_, if you don't cut out this bizarre, vaguely blasphemous and perverse little exercise, I am going to go demand a new room as far away from yours as I can get and I will charge it to _your_ side of the family."

"Sure you don't want any? I saved you a cherry." And he had – it was balanced, still glazed, on his finger tip.

"I do not want "any". Any of any_thing_. Is that clear? And I am certainly not eating that!" she added, as he offered the cherry one last time.

Of course, more returning guests entered the annoyingly busy hallway at that moment. No, not returning guests, but the same ones who had heard her insist "Not until we're married" a few minutes before, apparently now going out for a nightcap and looking at her a bit askance, since she was now the one at his door.

"I thought you _wanted_ to wait, but…," he said, sweeping her inside, the cherry falling from its precarious perch on his finger and rolling out into the hallway, and once again he was pressing his mouth to hers, his lips now tasting of almond marzipan and cherry. _Annie_, she scolded herself_,_ _if you're totally resisting him, how is it you've managed to taste that on your tongue? _She pulled away.

"This is enough. We have to get up early in the morning for the retake on our hike, remember? I want to get some sleep."

"All right," he said, holding up his hands in surrender, which she noticed did still have some sugar stuck to them. Her tongue reflexively touched her lips briefly at the sight of it. "I promise you, whatever I'm doing over here, you won't hear a thing."

"Good. Great. Perfect." She swung out of the room into the fortunately empty hallway and back into her own room. She put the plunger back in the bathroom. He was keeping his word, she wasn't hearing anything. _"Whatever I'm doing over here, you won't hear a thing."_ And she wasn't. Nothing. Except … what _was_ he doing over there?

She pressed her ear against the wall before she realized the inanity and even slight perversity of what she was doing. He had succeeded in somehow charging even the _silence _with desire and innuendo.

That was it. She skipped the rest of her bedtime rituals, threw herself down on her own bed, pulled the pillow over her head, and went to sleep.

**Author's Note: Did I get too silly here? Wasn't sure ... I've classified this story under "Romance/Humor but thought maybe I'd gone too far with the pastries - which by the way, really exist, originally made by nuns. Do Review! And in exchange, if you do review under your login (so you'll get my return message by PM) I will send you an extra self-contained and very fun scene of this story!**


	8. In the Heights of Santa Margarita

The next day, they embarked on their "hiking", getting up at 5 a.m. in the morning and enjoying an early breakfast prepared by the kind-hearted proprietress in the tiny dining room. It was still dark when they took a well-marked trail to a sunrise viewing spot. Their plan was to get a few photos of the olive oil plant from any possible angles above, set up a small monitoring camera aimed at the facility, and then wander by it in the early hours when it was just possible there might be some unusual activity done at a time when no one was likely to be around.

Annie liked hiking with Eyal, though she knew he held himself back – his long legs gave him speed and an advantage in finding paths over rougher ground. He could also seemingly see in the dark, eschewing the use of the flashlights they brought and following the path easily. She just stayed focused on following his steps until the light began to turn to grey. Today was clearly a "work" day so the constant stream of sexual innuendo had dried up a bit. If they accomplished what they needed to today, the mission would be over and so would their pre-marital waiting period. The sunrise was beautiful, washing snow-capped mountains in peach and gold. They took plenty of pictures, of the view and of each other, setting the timer for a couple of cozy paired photos; if anyone checked their camera, it would be full of fun pictures appropriate to the intended event. From various vantage points, he framed her so that the facility was still visible but looked like he was intent on getting her framed with wildflowers. She scrambled up a tree for another photo, because placing the camera would require a similar height and angle and it might be handy to prove they had a thing for climbing trees. At an ideal spot, Eyal installed the tiny camera in the crotch of a tree, and then they began descending toward the facility.

A bit too quickly, at least from Annie's perspective. Eyal pressed his fingers against her ankle, testing it, shook his head and scooped her up. "I cannot believe it. I have seen you run downhill on wet cobblestones in those dagger heels of yours, and you never stumble and fall. Now, here, in good hiking shoes, you trip over a rock."

"Sorry," she said. He was carrying her so easily it felt as if she were no burden at all. She put her fingers to her forehead, where she had managed to graze a rock on her way down. It was still bleeding slightly and swelling. "Do you have a handkerchief or something?"

"No. Blood adds realism. Also, head injury, you can pretend to vomit, fall, become disoriented and open the wrong door, endless possibilities."

"Thanks for your concern!"

"It's superficial. I mean the wound. My concern for you runs endlessly deep. But your head is fine. Your ankle is more of a problem. I'd tape it now but better that we do as much as we can down there, giving us more time to check it all out."

"You make me feel as if I weigh nothing."

"Your nearness makes me stronger, neshema." He smiled down at her, tightening his grip a little. It felt ridiculously good to be carried by him, and that was a very sweet thing for him to say. She moved her hand to touch his chest, feeling his heart pulsing. He kissed the top of her head in response.

The processing facility was just starting to gather colors as the rising sun lit the world. There was no movement. They both went silent and on alert, other than a few remarks that a concerned fiancé might make to his injured sweetheart. "Hang on, not much farther, we'll get a doctor…."

Eyal headed them straight to the place least likely to have an office, a large storage building which they might not otherwise get to see. A rear entry door was wide open; the interior had plenty of space. The lighting was dim but they both noted a small personal-sized helicopter under a tarp in one corner. Nothing else caught their attention and he turned to take her outside again, to the next least likely building, where the olive oil processing equipment was. He called out "Hello?" a couple of times, not as loudly as he could. That building too was dark, then it blazed to life with strong lighting, almost blinding after the dusk-like conditions outside. Annie heard someone hissing , in Basque, 'Intruders! Where's Patxi? What is he doing?" suspecting that Patxiwas supposed to be on guard duty. She kept her face blank as several men emerged suddenly from an interior room. Annie glimpsed a gun being hurriedly concealed in a deep overall pocket. She tapped her fingers against Eyal's chest and he squeezed her back; he'd seen it too.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, thank God! Can you help us? My fiancée is injured. We hiked up to see the sunrise …." The men glanced at each other, unsure. "Is there a first aid kit or a phone …. My cell isn't working up here."

Providentially, a droplet of blood chose that moment to fall from Annie's forehead, hitting the otherwise immaculate floor.

"Yes, yes," the one marginally in charge said. "Come, come this way."

"Bang me into the vat," Annie whispered into Eyal's chest.

"Happily." Eyal obliged, swinging her around too fast and taking an extra step as if thrown off balance by the move. Her feet hit the vat, hard. It thumped instead of ringing. Something that wasn't olive oil was in that vat.

"Honey!" Annie screeched. "Watch where you're going! What are you trying to do, hurt me worse?"

"Sorry, sorry." The men were frozen in place, as if waiting for a disaster to happen, then seemed to realize that would look strange and started moving again; they did not look too pleased but seemed to accept it as an accident.

"It was your idea to take this stupid morning hike… I'm going to be limping all the way down the aisle."

"Not now, darling. Let's get you some help…."

Behind them, Annie could just make out the whispers of the two men following. "Yes, but she is bleeding and there will be a clear trail from where they were to here. We dare not kill them."

Their host encountered the wayward Patxi and lambasted him in Basque. Patxi looked terrified. The leader opened up an interior office and offered a leather couch for Annie to lie on. "Now _both_ my feet are hurt, " she whined. Eyal fussed over her. "Can we call a doctor? Get an ambulance up here?"

"The only ambulance in Santa Margarita cannot make the road. We will drive you down by truck, right now." He spoke to the other men in Basque. "Go get the truck."

"What about the olive oil? Should we unload it?"

"Cover it up. We need to get these fools out of here as quickly as possible."

"Check under the tarp," Annie whispered as Eyal carried her to the vehicle, a three-wheeled olive oil truck, a microvan designed to handle the tiny twisting streets of central Santa Margarita and which was barely big enough to hold the driver and the two of them. Getting in, Eyal managed to catch a glimpse of what was under the tarp, slightly raising one eyebrow to let her know that he had accomplished the task.


	9. A Medical Moment

The sullen driver deposited them at the tiny medical clinic announced by a prominent red cross on a painted stone wall. It looked like it could have served the same function in World War II, but inside was a bit more contemporary than the other civic buildings they had seen in Santa Margarita and they efficiently tended to Annie. "My poor darling, you're being very brave," Eyal told her, for the benefit of the nurse, stroking her shoulder and letting her lean against him as they wrapped her foot.

"It's okay," Annie said as the nurse left them alone. "You don't have to be _that_ sweet to me."

"Why not? I like babying you a little. Not something I've gotten to do much of."

"You're alarmingly good at it, actually." She couldn't help it, it touched her heart to feel his care for her in every word and touch.

"Why should that be such a surprise?" he cooed at her, smiling.

"I just don't want to get spoiled."

"Probably not much chance of that for us," Eyal said.

The nurse returned with a clipboard and paper to sign, and they were allowed to borrow a crutch from a wall rack of canes, crutches, and walking sticks.

Once out in the sunshine, it was back to business. "So, did you see what was under the tarp in the truck?" Annie asked.

"I did indeed." He rattled off a sentence in Greek. Annie raised her eyebrows – Greek was not one of her languages. Yet. She might want to remedy that – and Eyal would be a fun practice partner. "Cans of Minotaur Brand Olive Oil, straight from the island of Crete."

"Why would they have Cretan olive oil in Santa Margarita's new olive oil facility?"

"Actually, it's more common than you may know – a huge amount of so-called Italian olive oil also comes from Crete. One of the great culinary secrets of Europe. They import it by the carload, bottle it, and sell it as the superficially more desirable Italian. But not like this – not just a few cans of it. My guess is that there is virtually no olive processing going on up there and that the oil they were receiving is exactly enough to pour into new bottles and take down to the shop. One more indicator that something is wrong."

"Something is very wrong. They even discussed killing us while we were there. Not because they made us, just because we were there unexpectedly."

"So we should make our exit. There goes the wedding."

"I'm checking in with Joan and see what she wants us to do. We should be safe from them now, everyone saw us arrive in their truck – if anything happened to us now, that would be a clear place to start investigating."

"Assuming they don't have the entire municipality in their pocket. Not that many people to buy or intimidate here." Annie made a detour toward a street vendor's table. No shoes, but some very nice purses. " You're doing very well with that, by the way. Hobbling with great grace and style."

Joan saw it Annie's way – so far, the camera hadn't captured anything interesting and she thought it would be better to keep watching for a few days and leave Annie and Eyal in place. Of course, that also meant they would be left in _matrimony_.


	10. It's Bad Luck to Waste Olive Oil

Annie sat down at the edge of the bed, poking at her wrapped ankle. The local medical office had bound her up appropriately, but it didn't feel quite right, some inner figure eight was too tight. Eyal noticed her trying to adjust it. "Wrapped too tight?"

"A little. It's okay."

"Here. Let me."

"It's all right…"

"Don't want you to lose a pretty little toe to gangrene," Eyal said, already undoing the clasps and unwinding her.

"Let me guess, Mossad gives you full medical training too."

"Something like that." He very efficiently freed her of the bandage. She flexed her foot experimentally but it was still wince-worthy. "You've got quite a bit of swelling. I can reduce some of that edema for you." He got up and went to the tiny bathroom and washed his hands. On his way back, he grabbed the bottle of olive oil off the dresser where Annie had left it, opened it up, and poured a bit of it into his hands.

"Eyal, this is totally unnecessary. I'm fine. Just wrap me back up. I don't need you to ….oh god, that feels good." He'd grabbed her "good" foot , propped it against his thigh and was now kneading it with his fingers.

"Olive oil has natural healing properties as well. Of course, the best olive oil comes from the ancient trees of Israel, but this Cretan stuff, it's okay."

"I know, I know, everything's better from Israel … I don't know about the oil but I may concede the point on the masseur…" Annie struggled to sit up. Without even thinking about it she'd collapsed back against the pillows, and now, apparently inspired by thirty seconds of foot-rubbing, she was paying him an unsolicited compliment, exactly what this already annoyingly over-confident man did not need to hear.

"Thank you. Knew you'd come around eventually," he responded, smiling broadly, accepting his due. "But the angle is better if you lie back down. Helps fluids flow back toward the heart." Of course, he would have a therapeutically-correct reason for her lie back down. But she didn't protest. It did feel better that way. She relaxed while he finished her good foot and began to work on her bad one. Though he was working deeply, he didn't hurt her, somehow knowing exactly where she was tender. She sighed and sank more deeply into the feather pillow. Then she opened her eyes more widely – she'd actually fallen asleep. Which was probably why his hands were now above her knee and approaching her inner thigh.

"Excuse me, I don't think wrapping an ankle requires going up to the neck. You're not going to make a mummy out of me. "

"Well, certainly not until after the wedding. We want to avoid scandal." He unwound the last couple of feet of bandage, grinning at his joke, and taped up her foot properly. It felt much better. He reached back to her uninjured foot and worked it a bit more, adding more oil to his hands. "Oops," he announced, not a word that she'd ever heard him use, or need to use. "I still have plenty of oil on my hands. It's a sin to waste olive oil, you know. Want me to do your back?"

"No way, Eyal."

"How do your feet feel?"

"That's not fair…" Her feet felt marvelous, even the injured one.

"Think of me as a trained therapist. I will absolutely respect your boundaries, however inconvenient, unnecessary, and capricious they may appear to me."

"Just like you're a trained agent who absolutely violates every boundary that even gets near to being in your way." He shrugged, not disagreeing.

"Really, Annie. It _is_ bad luck to waste olive oil."

Her feet did feel awfully good. "All right. No peeking!" She twisted away from him and pulled up her top, and flattened herself against the bed, reaching back to undo her bra herself. _This is so not a good idea_, she thought. _Who knew I'm such a massage slut?_ _And who knew he was so damn good at it_? It wasn't too late to back out – yes it was. She felt his hands move aside her hair and grip across the top of her shoulders, and she gasped, it felt so good. "When you take a tumble like that, everything gets knocked out of place and strained," he said, softly, as his fingers found pockets of tension she knew must have been there for years, left over from old strains and wounds. When was the last time she'd had a really good massage? Oh dear. Sri Lanka, seaside locals offering it on the beach. When she was with … The space for his name was filled with Eyal finding a particularly powerful pressure point, driving out whatever knot of energy had been tied right there. For a second she couldn't even remember. "Ben," she finally said aloud, softly.

"What?"

"It's _been_ a long time…" He made her gasp again. "Since I've had a massage so good."

"You had only to ask, Neshema…. I'm fully ready to meet all your needs." He probed around her neck. "Your neck's out of place. Trust me enough to release that? Sit up." She complied, felt his fingers press against her neck and skull. She had seen him once kill this way, saving her life at the farmhouse outside of Paris; for an instant she felt a frisson of fear, but he expertly maneuvered her head, gave it a sudden light, not deadly, twist, and she felt the vertebrae slide into their proper places with a crackle. Then he worked her neck for a time before she slumped back onto the bed and felt his hands seeking other places of tension along her spine. She'd clutched her blouse to her chest but let it drop too.

That was not a small puddle of drool on her pillow pressing against her face. Except it did feel like exactly that, and cool, so it had been there a while. She didn't like it but couldn't gather the energy to move. Every bit of her felt utterly relaxed and soothed and content, like the aftermath of really astounding sex. Wait, what? She opened her eyes. She could see Eyal reflected in the mirror in the small bathroom, steam rising from the hot water tap, just finishing washing his hands. He had his shirt off. Um, so did she. And somewhere along the line she had lost her other clothing. How long had she been lying there naked? Had – what had happened, exactly? She could feel a light layer of oil all over her skin – no, wait, not all over. There were several key areas that were perfectly oil-free. Eyal came back into the room, pulling on his shirt but leaving it unbuttoned. "Have a good nap?" he asked innocently.

"It seems like when I fell asleep I had a few more items of clothing still on than I do now?"

"They got in the way," he answered, simply. "And I didn't want to get them oily. But in my defense, if you check, you will find that there is a large margin of safety – oil-free areas – around various sensitive areas of your anatomy. And, frankly, if anything untoward had occurred, I can assure you would _not_ have slept through it. By the way, you snore very cute. Also the drooling, very enticing."

_I must be angry and outraged at this… I think. If only I didn't feel so good_, Annie thought. She stared at him. She wasn't silly enough to rank such things, but his massage of her – without sex – she'd have to put in her top ten sensual experiences ever. Top nine. Eight. Hm. Maybe top two.

"How did you get so good at this?"

"Mossad's usual thorough training…"

"I don't believe that."

"Really. Sent me to school. Diplomat's wife had a favorite spa and a thing for new staff members…. I mastered all types of body work. Ah, you might want to … um…unless you _don't_ want to, of course." Sheesh. She was so out of it she was sitting there completely ineffectually covering herself with her blouse, both breasts peeking out the sides as she kept only her sternum covered. She rearranged the blouse more modestly.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure."

**Author's Note: As always, reviews are welcomed and really make my day!**


	11. A Photo Finish

The actual ceremony, Annie decided, was more anticlimactic than the registering for the license. There was a carnival air about the mayoral hall, and it was busy enough to feel like it was all someone else's wedding entirely. Some parties had children with them, or full families comprising several generations plus friends and various wedding professionals. She felt a little underdressed in her white lace dress. Eyal had startled her by showing up in a full morning suit complete with top hat, as if he needed to appear more imposing and dashing than he normally was.

"Oh, nearly forgot." Eyal slid into her hand a small object. It was a plain but sturdy looking gold band. She looked askance at him. "Only fair. I'm tagging you, after all.'

Annie toyed with it in her fingers, under the little bouquet of flowers which was included in their package. "Mountain wildflowers in pale colors" was the description in the pamphlet.

It was now their turn as the previous couple moved away with smiles and friends congratulating them.

"Santa Margarita welcomes you in the name of love!" The Mayor greeted them as they approached the ceremonial area. They had already heard the same greeting about five times already, but the mayor was doing a good job of maintaining his enthusiasm for each couple. It was a quick secular ceremony, stripped of all but the bare essentials – they had not opted for the Special Deluxe Package.

"Do you take this man " - Annie listenedd to the cover name, which did help to make this feel as if it was something she was just observing, not participating in - "to be your husband? You do? Good. Now the ring. Fine. Do you take this woman to be your wife? Yes? Good. Ring, then kiss!" They obliged and made it realistic for the onlookers, but it felt flat to Annie, and she suspected he felt the same. The Mayor carried on, jublilant. "Yes! By the laws of Santa Margarita, and the powers of the Mayoral Office by charter since 1453, I do declare you man and wife! Now sign the register, and pick up the certificate. Also, the coupon for 20 percent off on your second honeymoon at any hotel in Santa Margarita." The pen for signing was adorned with three-foot pheasant feathers, giving it a nicely archaic touch. They exited to a quick peal of wedding bells. There was a misfire at the hall door – they had not selected the Rice Option, but were pelted nonetheless as the photographer did his duty.

They had turned down the videographer, which was an extra fee, but the photographer was part of the package and hard to evade without being suspicious - who wouldn't want a photo? Spies getting married in cover identities. So they froze in place and attempted as much disguise as possible – Eyal swiftly donned his sunglasses and tipped the brim of his top hat; Annie brought her hair forward and put the veil back on in the most concealing way possible. He didn't seem to care and shot them quickly. Eyal whispered in her ear. "Delay him. Slip him a 20 euro note and tell him you want some upclose cheesecake of your – you're wearing a garter or something? Fancy underwear? Something distractingly intimate - as a surprise for me. The main camera he's using has a big lens and won't be so good for awkward up close work but I saw he has a smaller one with him and I think he'll use that. I've seen the big camera model now and I'm going to go grab a matching chip at the souvenir shot and switch it out while you distract him."

Like most photographers, this one appreciated a beautiful woman and he was more than happy to oblige Annie; she flirted him up and delayed him until she saw that Eyal had returned, ready for his chip exchange. Annie drew along the photographer and posed on a low wall and invited him to make a mildly risque photo up close and personal. As expected, he set aside his larger camera briefly and Eyal silently got his hands on it as Annie shifted position to draw the photographer's attention even farther away. "I don't mind if you catch just a hint of my panties," she said, to make fully sure the photographer would not be thinking of his main camera at that moment, when she saw Eyal make a slashing gesture across his throat. The deed was done. "Oh, maybe not. There's my husband!" The photographer turned around in disappointment. "Hi honey! I was just getting some special shots for you!"

"I can take my own, thanks," he said, sounding belligerent and pushing a Euro note at the photographer as if anxious to get him away from his newly-minted wife. "Let's get out of here," he added.

As soon as they returned to their "bridal suite" Eyal began dealing with the photo chip, pulling them up on his tablet.

"I wish we didn't have to steal the other couples' pictures, but I guess there is no way around that," Annie commented.

"At this moment, if he's any good and checks his work, the photographer is probably realizing something went badly wrong and is now chasing them down before they can change out of their wedding clothes – he may approach us, too. But in any case, can't be helped."

Annie and Eyal watched the photos slide by. Delete, delete, delete. But then they both froze. In the midst of shots of another couple, the photographer had wisely snapped a few candid shots – extra dollars potentially. And one of them was of them waiting outside for their turn, unaware of the camera. They were both looking at each other, somehow both caught perfectly in three-quarter view, ideal lighting, composition, one of those miraculous shots. Annie knew the moment – he'd made another "virginity" comment and she had turned to razz him right back, She was smiling and pointing a finger at him, and he was looking down at her, one hand raised in mild defense of himself, a perfect expression on his face, one that she knew from not just that moment but the best moments they ever spent together.

"I suppose we have to…" Annie said, leaning over his shoulder. "But that is a great photo."

"That's just how I think of you when you're not around, neshema. It catches your sparkle, your fun, how beautiful you are, everything." She squeezed her fingers into his shoulder. "Come on. Let's take a good long look before we hit delete." He pulled her around in front of him, and she let him seat her on his thigh.

"That's just how I see you, too," she said, softly. "When you look at me that way I feel safe, and warm, and excited to be with you…. And you are definitel y – oh, how did you arrogantly describe yourself the other day? When you were talking about Israel needing your seed? "A magnificently healthy specimen", I think you said? That fits you to a T in that shot."

He zoomed it in. They played around, scoping out the details, delaying the moment of deletion . But it had to go.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Let's do it together, " she said, putting her hand over his, hovering over the delete button. "Oh, wait, let's use our wedding fingers."

He chuckled at that as they lined up their digits, hers on top of his. "So this is it. This is the physical consummation where we both unite together in a single act."

He was right. This felt like the "marriage moment", both of them making a difficult decision together. "One … two… three… " The image screen asked "are you sure". They both paused again. Annie sighed. "Let's go." They pressed down on the key with their "wedding fingers". The picture vanished. There were two or three others on the chip, the more posed ones with Eyal in his sunglasses and Annie with her veil pulled forward, and the first "sexy" pose she had staged to tempt the photographer so Eyal could get hold of the camera. Those were easy to eradicate; they'd known at the moment they were taken that they were not meant to last, both of them trying to assume expressions far from their usual that might make them slightly less recognizable if the chip retrieval failed. The close-ups on her garter would reveal nothing so the photographer could hang onto those. Eyal kept his arms around her, not feeling her up, just holding her. It felt too nice, and she squirmed out of the embrace and got back to her feet.

_**Author's Note: Hope you are enjoying this - Please review!**_


	12. Questions and Answers

Meanwhile, Back At Langley

The camera image of the facility seemed stable, and Barber was not even paying perfect attention to it when suddenly a man carrying an automatic rifle and led by a determined small dog entered the frame, the dog sniffing the ground, clearly a trained nose. Joan happened to be passing behind him just as the dog handler, obviously looking for a camera, honed in on the spot and then used his gun to dislodge it. The image went dead.

"That's one of our smallest models. He knew exactly what he was looking for and where to look. And now, they'll be looking for Eyal and Annie. Auggie! Set up an extraction and let Annie know they've been made."

"I'm not used to rings that catch on everything," Annie said to him, while Eyal patiently disentangled her hair from the ring on her hand. She'd brushed her hair from her face and then couldn't get herself free. The ring, a perfect fit in the shop, now seemed to be tightly and permanently attached to her hand – as, she guessed, in normal circumstances it should be.

"There. Small price to pay for your lovely hair. Now, even on kid number five, you're not cutting it. I don't care how much the twins pull on it."

"Let me guess. Twins run in your family."

"What can I say, neshema? Lavin men are fertile."

"But I'm not married to a Lavin man, according to this finely engraved document." She waved it at him – they did it very nicely in Santa Margarita, with a medieval-looking polychrome print touched up with gilt in the corners. But it probably wasn't the kind of mission souvenir she'd be allowed to keep, any more than the photos they had just deleted.

"Clerical error. I'm sure the appropriate fee at the registrar's office will amend that. But speaking of fertility, we have a task to do now."

"Beloved, I thought we had an understanding on that subject."

He sat on the bed beside her. It was a remarkably small double bed and sleeping together that night – without sleeping together - would be interesting. The only other soft surface in the room was a delicate antique love seat that could hold, oh, about a third of Eyal's body. Perhaps they'd feign an argument so Eyal could get another room with a bed for himself. "We do. But what won't be understood is if we have returned to our lovely bridal suite and this inspiringly huge bed and do not make some quick use of it, at least for the benefit of the turn-down maid. So, off with this…." He tugged at the hem of her white stretch-lace dress.

"I'll take care of that, thank you very much. And we don't actually have to disrobe, you know, for what you have in mind."

"Once again, taking the fun out of everything," he murmured, and began gently bouncing his thighs against the edge of the bed. The sound wasn't quite right. Annie sighed, kicked off her shoes. He did the same. She pulled back the covers, hoping for a realistic rumple. They both lay side by side on the bed.

"Ready?"

"Ready." They began shaking against the bed. And then he did something completely unfair and unexpected. Annie squealed and the bed did bump the wall, which was their intention. "Stop that this instant!" she ordered, but as quietly as she could.

"Always suspected that you are, in fact, ticklish. On both sides?" In an instant, he was over her and above her, braced chastely, balancing himself on his toes and one hand, while the other sought the matching ticklish spot on the other side.

"Aigh! Stop it!" That was a little too loud. He relented but stayed in place over her. "What's this? You're a human hovercraft?"

"Basic fitness practice, hundred push-ups a day. I can stay in this position all night. Of course, it would be more fun if you _helped_." He managed to start the bed moving underneath them again, his grinning face three inches from her own. She moved her shoulders to match his rhythm, her contribution to keeping the bed moving. He was not touching her at all, except where the fingers of one hand were by her shoulder, but she knew what was waiting for her if she pressed up with her hips at all, or reached up to place her arms around his neck.

_Did _she know what was waiting for her?

"I like seeing you from this new angle," he said, softly. "It's a view I could get very accustomed to, neshema." His eyes were warm and she could see every detail of his face, more clearly than ever before.

"You're not worried about wearing that word out anymore?"

"Worth the risk."

"Is it?" His eyebrows raised at that question. She saw him start to say something, to speak with those sensuous lips, then decide to say something else entirely.

"Maybe it's not, if you are asking that question. Maybe I need to ask a question of my own," he said, his voice low.

Things had shifted, and she didn't like it; the play had suddenly gotten deadly serious.

"What?"

"We've come close to this before, Annie, you and I. You've haven't wanted to cross that river. And that's fine, if it just isn't the right time or circumstance, not that you have already decided that I'm not the man for you, or I don't attract you or a thousand other things. Maybe this is the time I need to know – is it "not now"… or "never"?"

Annie lay there in stunned silence. She could see a terrible knowledge start to form in his eyes, which was not right, yet she could not form the words that she needed to say in time. So she reached up a hand behind his head and pulled his lips to hers. Thrown off balance, he settled heavily onto her and she gripped him around his back, feeling his strong, powerful body lining up against hers, leaving little to the imagination. But she didn't want imagination now, she wanted reality. Breaking away for an instant, she told him, "You didn't give me the third option. What if it is "now"?"

"Never was good at multiple choice questions…." he said, before kissing her back, this time for real. As he pressed himself against her and she felt his mouth mingling with her own, and felt every fragment of her body and soul responding - she realized – this is why I told Joan I couldn't _pretend_ to marry Eyal Lavin. Because there could be no _pretending_ about it, not with him. Something within her would rush to take it for real, could not help but rush to take it for real. She felt tears moisten her eyes, and that seemed more of a confirmation than anything, because they were tears of relief, and hope and … her fingers felt for his buttons, and she loved the tautness of his shirt over his chest muscles and the fact that she could take it off him, because he was hers, and there would finally be no denying that. And the reverse, that she was his, was equally true.

Her cell phone began to buzz; even more unnervingly, seconds later, so did his. Then came the explosion that really rammed the bed into the wall and showered the room with glass. She lay there in stunned silence, the world gone quiet; she knew that would pass as her ears recovered. Eyal sprang into action first. "Are you hurt? Watch the glass!" He found her shoes, shook them out, handed them to her; she snatched up her bag and cell phone; they both knew a second explosion could follow the first. Her cell phone began ringing again. She clicked through as they headed for the door.

'"News is you've been made. Get out now," she heard Auggie say. "Arranging extraction at the foot of the mountain – get on the train, it's leaving in two minutes."

"Somebody just tried to blow up our hotel, we may have been the targets."

"Figures. Camera was found, looked like they followed some sort of trail right to it."

"I was bleeding from an injury. That makes sense." Annie and Eyal had reached the bottom floor; she turned to head for the station, but Eyal grabbed her and pulled her in the opposite direction. She caught a glimpse of men dressed in the colors of the olive processing plant running toward them, and they took off. She barely registered that the quaint front of their hotel was missing, the rooms mostly revealed to the street, the result of a car bomb; that it was aimed at them was obvious from their pursuers. Why they didn't choose a quieter way of eliminating them was anyone's guess. "Come on, come on," Eyal encouraged. There was a piece of glass in her shoe digging into her damaged foot but she couldn't stop now. She saw his thinking; the train had just left the station and where they were running would take them parallel to the tracks as it made a steep drop; with a little luck they could jump on top of it as it began the descent. She heard a bullet slice through the air and pop into a tree just ahead of her, sending up a spray of splinters; they zigzagged and ran to the edge of the small park-like area near the tracks. The train was moving slowly as it approached the descent; Annie ran straight for it and launched herself onto the roof, Eyal landing moments later. She scrambled to the ladder on the opposite side from their pursuers as the train connected with the gears with a jerk that almost dislodged Eyal. Annie pounded on the door while hanging on to the ladder and one of the passengers took pity on her and opened it from the inside. Hopefully the noise of the train had concealed the gunfire.

"Thank you," she said sweetly, moving aside to let Eyal clamber in. "We were so worried we were going to miss the train, weren't we honey?"

"Absolutely. Our rental car parked at the bottom is due back today," he said with a smile, nodding to the adjacent passengers and sliding into a seat. "Want to avoid that extra fee."

**Author's Note: Almost off the mountain but one more crisis to come - ! Please review !**


	13. Down From the Mountain

The train gathered speed as it angled down the mountain, the gearing mechanism connecting the train to the hill at the steepest point. Annie saw the look of surprise on the face of a passenger on the other side of the car as a different sound began from just outside the window. Instinctively, she pulled Eyal down to the floor as the small helicopter they had noticed at the olive-oil processing facility abruptly came into view, its tiny cockpit filled with two men, one with an automatic weapon which began spitting out bullets. Eyal returned fire but the chopper was too close; Annie crawled along the floor until she could get to the door where they had entered the car and popped it open. Eyal had succeeded in winging the gunman, but the pilot was now raising his own gun, maneuvering the copter one-handed with the help of his knees. From her shoulder bag Annie pulled out the half-empty bottle of olive oil; if she could throw it just right so it landed on top of the rotor base, it could inflict enough damage to bring down the whirlybird, or the pilot might think the dark glass bottle was an explosive and veer away. She threw it and it hit home, sending the small chopper briefly at an angle, forcing it to clip a tree and crash into the hillside.

"You're right, olive oil _is_ very versatile," she said, as Eyal pulled her back from the open door.

"I would say we got full value out of that bottle," Eyal agreed, then looked at his cell phone display. "Extraction set up for me at the bottom of the mountain as well," he whispered to her, his breath warm on her ear. "We'll be going in different directions. So this is goodbye." He took her hand and glanced around, making sure there were no additional small helicopters or other threats looming before kissing her gently. The other passengers were fortunately uninjured and beginning to get themselves up off the floor, giving the happy married but dangerous to know couple a wide berth. "This was _certainly_ a close call," he said, and she knew from his tone he was not referring to their latest near-death experience together.

"Yes, it was." She choked out the words.

"One day, Annie."

"We'll get to pretend to be married for real?"

"Something like that. Do you know the poem "Ithaca"?"

She did; it was famous, and Eyal in his Cypriot Greek guise must know it well, but she shook her head, wanting to hear him explain it to her. "Something to do with Penelope patiently waiting on Ithaca for Odysseus to stop wandering?" she said, knowing it was wrong.

"Not quite. More like, traveling on in hope, and how it may be better than arriving too soon."

Annie shrugged slightly. "Maybe. Maybe, Eyal." She wasn't so sure. That fear of "too soon" she thought, at that moment, could turn too easily into "too late". She felt strands of the "wedding" entangling around her for a moment, and that one moment with him, on the bed. Was that really what she wanted, with him? Really? Away from the moment, she didn't know. She dug in her bag, pulled out a woven cloche hat, stuffed her hair into it, put on a sweater – hardly advanced disguise - even in wedding-friendly Santa Margarita few new brides wore their white dresses on the trip back down the mountain - but it might buy her a precious second at some point.

Eyal squeezed her hand for the last time and they both shifted into a higher state of readiness. A sign by the tracks announced they were just leaving Santa Margarita as the descent was complete; there were armed police and other authorities ready to flood into the car and ascend to Santa Margarita to investigate the explosion and attack on the train; Eyal and Annie got out immediately and scattered in opposite directions. Two men bent on pursuit focused on Eyal, but she heard a squeal of brakes and saw him lunge into a vehicle just as someone greeted her as "Agent Walker?" and took her by the shoulder, racing her away from the station into a waiting SUV. She settled into the seat, strapped herself in gratefully, happy to be alive and on her way to relative safety ; she concentrated on the feelings of relief, not the sense of longing and loss. She toyed with her ring; she'd have to remove that before returning to work. She doubted that it would show up on some report of misplaced equipment from Mossad, so his ploy of giving her a ring – if that was what he meant to do – had worked.

Back at Langley, the debrief was over; Annie had gone through the dry facts of the case and expected to be dismissed. But Joan didn't seem to be in any hurry. "So , overall, you were able to work well with Eyal Lavin. I know you had some concerns initially that he might take advantage of the situation."

"He turned out to be quite the gentleman this trip. No problems."

"Good. I'm glad to hear that."

"Joan, when you first assigned me to this case, you seemed kind of happy about it. I was wondering, was there a reason why?"

"Happy?" Joan shuffled some of the papers. "I don't recall that I was particularly _happy_ about it, beyond it being somewhat flattering that an experienced Mossad agent was coming to me asking for one of my relatively new operatives and that we could fill an apparent gap for them with your excellent language skills. "

"Oh, I see." Annie deliberately said no more and wondered if Joan would fill _that _gap. Silence was powerful; Joan, apparently unaware of Annie's manipulation, resumed speaking.

"And, it's always nice to know that I'm sending you out in … you've had quite the time here, from the very first day. I've sent you into harm's way several times, and of course, given our work, I'm sure I will again. But I was glad, I think that's what you're responding to, glad to be sending you into the field again with Eyal. I know his skill set and I have a high degree of confidence that he will do whatever it takes to get you both through."

"So you trust him?"

"With quite a few caveats, yes, I do. "

"What kind of caveats, if I can ask?"

"That he's a Mossad agent and they will always have their own agenda, which they almost surely won't be fully sharing with us. That he can be extremely charming and make that seem extremely real. That he is an excellent liar and does it just for practice. Etcetera." The impeccably stacked papers in front of Joan got an extra pat. "Annie, there are some people you can trust never to take small change out of your desk drawer and there are some people you can trust with your life, as far as anyone can be trusted with that. All things being equal, you know they'll do everything in their power to make sure there's a good outcome for you. And Eyal I put in that category. Don't trust what he says, maybe don't even trust what he _does_, but look it all over at the end."

Annie left Joan's office and headed toward Auggie's area.

"Hm. A wounded Walker approacheth."

"Auggie, how can you possibly know that?"

"You're missing an "ety" from your usual clickety-clickety-clack."

"Very good. Bum ankle. I tripped in hiking shoes."

"Proof you have completely adapted to heels. Which is convenient, now that you are – presumably – a gay divorcee on the prowl for a new husband."

"Yep, I run through them pretty fast." Actually, she realized, unless the cover department was already on it, their cover identities were still happily married, probably forever, in the eyes of Santa Margarita. Contemplating that for an instant gave her a strange feeling that she didn't like. "Lining up candidates already. As a matter of fact, doing auditions at Allen's tonight."

"And with an injured ankle you can't run away so fast. Sounds like a perfect storm to me. See you there."

**Author's Note: So there we are indeed. I hope you liked this! Please comment/review! And please visit my other stories, too! The "sequel" to Along Weekend in Santa Margarita is the mostly-fluffy Mermaid BeachThanks for everyone's support on my fanfic! **


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